Metal will tell
by LittleLinor
Summary: Oneshots and drabbles focusing on Milly and Guillo and the Milly Guillo pairing, as well as the trio and the love quadrangle . Spoilers for the end of BKO, if you can't tell where the title comes from you'll probably be spoilt.
1. One Milly more is one Milly too much

Sooooo after MONTHS of sitting on my hard disk, this fic finally got finished. Or rather, this chapter got finished. Because yes, I plan to make more of these. Not so much chapters as unrelated or slightly related drabbles/oneshots, but still, several chapters. Because Milly x Guillo is seriously underrated, despite being the hotest and the most cracktastic pairing in the BKO world, with the additional bonus of being partly canon. So to spread the MillyxGuillo love, I'm going to write. Expect angst, humor, crack, wit from both protagonists, as well as appearances of Sagi, both as a random clueless character (because we all love clueless!Sagi), and as a main character in some (because Milly x Guillo x Sagi is the real canon of BKO, and I might write some too)

And I just noticed, this is the first het i've written in MONTHS. Well, if you can consider it het. Guillo doesn't really have a gender, but I call him "he", so I consider this het.

I dedicate this to DarkNo, who beta'd most of it, gave me inspiration and msn doodles to keep me happy and fangirly, and helps me spread the love for this awesome pairing. I still own her a Baelheit fic, but that will come within the crack BKO fics.

Any prompts for later chapters are welcomed.

WARNINGS: Er... human x puppet? Does it require a warning? Also Milly likes molesting people. But we knew that already. Oh and spoilers for the end of BKO. Do NOT read unless you've beaten baelheit.

Disclaimer: I, sadly, do not own BKO or its characters. if I DID own Milly I'd probably get on my knees and call her master.

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**One Milly more is one Milly too much**

"What's with the staring, Wench?"

Milly shook her head slightly and looked up at Guillo, who had used her spacing out to stop whatever entrancing activity he had been absorbed in and stand in front of her.

"Hmm? What's wrong, Dingbat?"

"Don't play innocent, Milliarde, it doesn't work with me. I've seen to the bottom of your rotten heart, so just drop it and tell me why you were staring at me."

This earned him a stuck out tongue. And, surprisingly enough, an answer.

"I was wondering what your wings of the heart would be like."

"… Wings?"

"Yes, wings. As in wings of the heart. Or should I take your lack of wings as a hint that you don't have a heart?"

"Do _you_ think I have a heart, Milliarde?"

"I have no idea. _You_ tell me", she said, grinning.

A pause.

"… I think the subject at hand was wings."

"Yes", she answered with a smirk. "Wings are supposed to show your heart and personality, so I was wondering what yours would be like."

"That theory is obviously overrated. Take yours, for example. With that trash bin you have as a heart, they shouldn't be that pretty."

"Well it obviously works for Sagi. Only a softie like him could have wings like that."

She wasn't about to argue on the previous comment. After all, getting her first compliment ever on something other than her cunning or deviousness was worth letting one comment drop.

"Besides, I _do_ have wings. You seem to be as attentive in battle as you were in school, Milliarde."

"Hum? Oh, you mean the bat wings you randomly sprout when you throw darkness at people? I'd noticed those, even if I wasn't counting them. Why do you think I call you Dingbat?"

"You called me that before you ever saw them."

"Call it a woman's intuition, then."

He snorted.

"Woman's intuition. Of course."

"It's either that or a trait of genius. Take your pick."

"So assuming your theory is right and wings are a mirror of your heart, shouldn't you be running for your life right now? Bat wings rather fit the description of the maneater, don't you think?"

The giggle that filled the air was not what Guillo had planned on. He turned to face her.

"What's so funny, Wench?"

"You know, they taught us in school that bats are peaceful creatures… and most of all that the reason they hang upside down is that they're so weak that their legs can't hold them if they try to stand."

At this moment Guillo was seriously wishing he had normal skin and veins, so he could have one show his extreme annoyance before he broke and did something stupid to the wench. As it was, he settled with giving a nasty red glow to his eyes.

"Why is it that you slept through any lesson that might have been remotely useful, and that you remember things like this?"

"Real animals are much more interesting than the slaying of creatures of legend. So it looks like I now have proof you are one of the weak and abused. You should be glad I'm around."

"May I remind you that most butterflies last only a few days? And that brats in Anuenue pin them down to keep them?"

"I'm a very nasty butterfly", she retorted with a dismissal wave of her hand. "And the one to pin _me _down isn't born yet."

Godslayers don't smirk. But they can make you _feel_ the smirk.

"According to that stupid scientist in the coliseum, I look like a mantis. I could very easily pin you and eat you right now."

"Except it's female mantis who eat the males while mating. Seeing _I_'m the girl here, you're the one who gets eaten, Dingbat."

For the first time since he last fought a machina arma, Guillo felt like he should have retreated from the field before things got bad.

"Awwww, did I touch a nerve? Don't tell me you're as much of a softie as Sagi…"

"I am NOT a softie, wench…"

"Sure you're not. What, want to eat me, now? It's getting old, you know."

"Don't mess with me, Wench. I very well know you're probably as hard to chew as I am."

"… what is your point?"

"Do you really want me to believe that someone as frail-looking as you are can thrash machina armas like that? I saw you fight that prototype in the coliseum. It's not human strength you have here."

"Is the idea that I'm just that stronger than you too hard to accept?"

"… Milliarde…"

"… How did you find out?"

Guillo suddenly felt uncomfortable. Arguing with Milly was one thing. Hearing her voice close to breaking was something extremely more disturbing.

"You said 'woman's intuition' earlier. Call it 'machina's intuition', then. Like, one recognises its own?"

She snorted at that, though half-heartedly.

"You're not even machina."

"Still."

"… you haven't told Sagi, have you?"

It was Guillo's turn to snort, and Milly reflected that snorting had been rather overrated since the beginning of their discussion.

"Please… he'd go all "I'll never let my friends down" on you and go running on a wild goose chase to do something about it instead of concentrating on getting rid of your father's peons and their toy machina."

She giggled this time, getting back into character much to Guillo's relief. The wench was tricky enough when she was in her normal state, he really didn't want to learn how to deal with a new one now that he'd finally started to be able to read her.

"You sure know how to think, for a puppet. Or did you steal that brain off someone, Masked Maneater?"

"Don't make me regret not telling him, wench. I'm _sure_ you want him to go ask Lolo or those strange people in the Nihal desert about it."

"… Please don't tell him, Guillo."

There was a short silence, before Guillo gave his best attempt at a sigh.

"Stop giving me the teary eyes and the fragile voice, Milliarde. It doesn't suit you. You're a half-machina girl who grew up in a bomb shelter, not one of those delicate flower-clad maidens from Opu."

She laughed in a more convincing manner, and Guillo relaxed a little.

"Besides", he continued, "apart from his hero complex, Sagi has a wicked God free-boarding his heart. I doubt he'd stop at a few bits of metal."

She laughed again.

"And what about you? You'd probably want to have as little in common with me as possible, right?"

"I'm not really made of machina, so I couldn't care less."

"_Well_? What about the 'machina's intuition', then?"

"Fruit of long observation."

"… Have you been observing me, dingbat?"

He shifted.

"Well, I was right to do so. You _were_ working for your father."

"And you didn't tell Sagi? Are you expecting me to believe that?"

"I didn't tell him about your… predicament either, as you put it."

"But you always say I'm so evil. _Surely_ you'd have taken that one more occasion to complain and get a chance to eat me."

"I wanted to make sure before I said anything. So I kept observing the situation."

"…"

Guillo always said a good Milly was a silent Milly. But right now, he wanted to go back on that declaration. A silent Milly was a bad omen. Especially if she was smirking.

"What are you smiling at, Milliarde? Not even a baloongator who ate a yesterbean would look so gleeful."

"… I was thinking that you did a lot of talking and observing. I guess you're not a man… er, puppet of action."

"And _you_ manage to act too rashly _and_ talk way too much at the same time."

"Oh do I?"

"Indeed."

"… Then I supposed you wouldn't be surprised if I acted rashly now, would you?"

The voice of instinct tried to cry out at that moment, but going from one Milly to the other had disturbed him, and the circuits that channelled his thinking were slightly mixed up, enough for his reaction to be delayed. The reflexes he had acquired from months of travelling with her, however, were faster. To his great dismay.

"What are you getting a-", said reflexes demanded.

And answer they did get, as Milly stood up suddenly and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him down and back on the chair with her.

"Milliarde, what do-"

A hand -stronger than any human hand had a right to be, he thought- came to paralyse his mouth, covering the cloth that was hiding it.

"Guillo? Shut up."

She teasingly replaced her hand with her mouth in a very brief kiss, amused at how the puppet's eyes widened, their red glowing stronger. Then, content with the fact that Guillo seemed indeed shocked enough to shut up, she finished pulling him down and on her lap, grinning as she cuddled the very uncomfortable puppet.

"You know, you're rather cosy for a pile of metal."

Guillo grumbled something along the lines of _you can talk_, then decided to accept his fate, the girl being much stronger than she seemed.

"… Milliarde?"

"Yes?"

"If Sagi comes in now, his heart will never survive the shock."

She giggled.

"I definitely hope he does. Seeing the look on his face is one of the best kicks I can get out of this."

"Because molesting a defenceless puppet isn't fun enough for you?"

"Oh, it is. Sagi's just an added bonus."

At this moment, Guillo decided he'd take back anything he'd thought that day. _Never_ again would he feel pity for this girl.

She'd only pay him back for it anyway.

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Thanks for reading and please review. Sagi likes nice people who review. And no one likes seeing Sagi sad.


	2. Fly

So because DarkNo was emoing and giving me the puppy eyes about it, I wrote this.

GET READY FOR MACHINA ANGST. And random Milly/Guillo references, because otherwise i'd have to start a NEW fic and i'm too lazy.

SPOILERS. The same as last time.

And I don't own BKO.

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**Fly**

Her wings were the embodiment of irony, and it was a good thing that she was sarcastic. It might have crushed her otherwise, made her bitter and desperate.

Beautiful, Sagi had called them, eyes glinting (Guillo had admitted that they were pretty while teasing her on something else, and in a way it made her more proud than Sagi's comment had, because Sagi always complimented people), and she had always used them to their full potential while fighting, turning herself into a graceful yet deadly figure dancing just above the ground. But that's all they would lift her, those precious few centimetres that allowed her to glide but not to fly, to race but not to flee. The weight of her machina body was too much for frail butterfly wings, and every time she saw Sagi's wings take him to the top floors or Diadem castle, she couldn't help but feel jealousy, even when he was so important to her and would have probably have been crushed to know she couldn't do the same.

At those moments Guillo would usually stay on the ground with her, making a sarcastic comment, and she would reply with something just as witty and she could smile again.

But the mere thought of trading her wings, to get strong and magestuous wings like Sagi or just to use winglets that her father's underlings had designed made her sick. Nauseous, and traitorous, for those wings were nearly the only part of her body that hadn't been touched by her "reconstruction". They were hers, like the small part of her chest that remained, and her head, and she felt that if they ever went away, she'd die with that last shred of her identity.

The nausea got even worse when she saw wings getting tore out, in her father's name no less. It was her fault, she knew. Her fault, and Olgan's fault for ever requesting that crazy experiment. Wings were tore out in her father's name, but her father did it in her name and in the name of her dead mother, and every time it happened, she felt like hers crumbled a little.

In the next fights, she would be more aggressive than ever, more reckless than ever, turning and gliding, and trying to kill all in one single strike instead of keeping to safe, fast attacks and letting Sagi and Guillo do their share.

Those evenings, when her bad mood followed her to their camp or back room of the magnus shops, Guillo would stay up after Sagi crumbled on the first bed available, sleeping fast, and tease her, but not about it. Strangely, those days he never mentioned bomb shelters, or bricks. If he wasn't an annoying dingbat and her in such a dreadful mood, she would probably have thanked him.

It was all terribly ironic, but then, Milly thrived on irony.

So she just made sarcastic comments, teased Sagi and argued with Guillo, and somehow life went on, and she was still alive.

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Thanks for reading and please review.


	3. Barrier

This was written as a Feel Better fic for No on lj, and since this collection has been untouched for too long, I decided to upload it here.

So HAVE SOME MOAR METALSHIP, PEOPLE.

Currently trying not to freak out at the quantity of work I have to do over the next four days. Augh.

Fandom: Baten Kaitos Origins

Pairing: Milly/Guillo, Milly/Guillo/Sagi (/marno?)

Rating: G

Warnings: Spoilers until the appearance of Tarazed

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**Barrier**

There are days when Sagi feels left out.

They're always together in close quarters, traveling the world as they are to fix the mistakes he did while trying to stop promachination, mistakes born of his ignorance and his incomprehension with Marno. They're always talking to each other, walking on each other, caping out, sleeping at the orphanage, bunking in the Sfida on their way from an island to another, and yet, there are time when he feels like there's a wall between them.

Or rather, a wall _around_ them, his two companions, brought together because of him but somehow linked further than he could hope to be.

He doesn't really get it. There should hardly be anything in common between the lively, all too human girl and the magic-born puppet, and yet there's an understanding beetween those two -grudging but undeniably present- that he cannot hope to share. When they are together, Guillo looks more human in his temper and snark, and Milly as she relaxes seems to act less over-the-top, more naturally even though her natural state remains dramatic. She takes more pride in her strength instead of feeling self-conscious about it, teasing Guillo along the way about his frailty.

They bicker every step of the way, but they work flawlessly together, personalities and fighting styles complementary. They're in a world of their own, born of mystery and hidden pasts, and the uncovering of said pasts that they have recently achieved seems to have deepened this bond.

He should feel jealous but he just feels a bit lonely. There's this barrier that he doesn't know how to cross, because for all he has one of the souls that make up a god sharing his mind, there are hardships that these two have shared in some way or another and that he can only imagine. Sagi is shy, and he doesn't want to come between them, when they both need this companionship and understanding so much. He doesn't dare break through.

But he loves them, so he tries. They are united in dark humor, so he tries to be the light, the hope and innocence of the group, just like Marno's warm companionship is a warm fire pushing the darkness away from the legend of Malpercio. Things are never as dark as they appear to be, and all four of them are a proof of this.

_Sagi is surprised, when he shyly approaches them as they talk, to see both suddenly gleaming at him, and suddenly find himself at the center of the world. He tries not to blush when Marno points out teasingly that their love for him is probably the strongest thing that ties them together._


	4. Screw the Screwdriver

Author's note

This is for my wonderful BK muse No, because I know I've been frustrating her with Obsidian.

Also I'm crawling under work and needed a break. And crack felt better than angst.

Warnings: This fic is perfect proof that I am screwed up in the head.

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**Screw the Screwdriver**

"Why are you squirming, Wench?"

"Did you really have to stick it _there_?"

"If you want me to fix it, yes. Or I could leave you squealing your way around for another few days. I have better things to do with my time than listen to you whine."

She pouted.

"Yes but-"

And then hissed.

"Yes?"

"Nothing." She did her best to control her breathing, wondering why her electrical nerve ends had to decide to go berserk _now_. They never did when her father fixed her.

Well, that might explain a lot, now she though about it.

The screwdriver did another twist, securing something way tighter than she was used to, and a groan vibrated in her throat, conveniently ignoring her tightly closed mouth.

_Thank you very much, body. Remind me to give you low quality oil next time._

She could _feel_ Guillo's raised eyebrow. Well, top-mask-half. That was probably why she could feel it moving, now she thought about it. Too much volume, it moved the air around, and right now her senses were _very_ sensitive to that kind of thing.

"Is something wrong? Your face is changing colour. Like a baloongator who'd swallowed a Diadem Cloud."

"Thank you _so_ much for comparing me to a baloon- _oh po_-" She bit her lip.

"'Po-'?" His voice sounded way too amused, whereas she had to wait till the movements in her back slowed down to talk again. She turned her head as far as she could to glare at him.

"'Powdung'. Am I not allowed to swear?"

"I thought you were a well brought up Mintakan Lady."

"If I was a well brought lady I would have slapped you and run away ages ago."

"Oh? Why don't you?"

"Don't want to hurt my hand. I'm not stupid enough."

"Of course." He grabbed her shoulder. "Hold tight."

And without further warning he plunged further in, twisting inside her. She nearly jumped, thanking the grip he had on her.

"Damnit, Guillo, that _hurt_."

"Not enough lubrication. When's the last time you oiled that part?"

"I don't know. It's not exactly easy to reach alone, you know."

He huffed.

"No wonder it got stuck. It's all dry in there. I'm surprised it's even running."

"Will you stop gloating about the state of my body and _fix_ it already?"

"Stop complaining or I'll leave it the way it is. Now wait a second." He reached behind them with his free hand, and when it came back she felt the cool trickle spreading through her back, easing stress-strung clockwork and nerves. Her body started working faster, flawlessly, a real shock after her previous drowsiness.

"Thanks, that feels--_damnit_, you really have to warn me when you do that."

"Doing what? This?" The tip of the screwdriver slipped between two parts, pushing against one and sticking it back in place so it could run more smoothly.

"_Yes, this. _Are you doing it on purpose or something?"

"Who knows."

It was too easy with everything oiled that well. She could feel everything that was going on in there -what had her father been thinking? She could understand that it helped her maintain it, but _seriously_- and there was _way too much _going on right now. Everywhere parts were being brushed, tightened, pushed into place, loosened, and it sent an overload of information down her nerves, all the way to parts she hadn't been aware were even connected to her machina date network. She was starting to wonder if Guillo had somehow gotten his hands on a blueprint or something. How could he be so efficient when he didn't even _see_?

"There."

A final part clicked into place, and she literally moaned. Sudden electrical input ran through her nerves, finally reaching her right hand fingers. When she got her breath back she opened her eyes and stared at them, trying to flex them. It worked.

"Thanks, Dingbat."

She looked up, and nearly jumped. Sagi was standing in front of them, his eyes wide.

"Sagi? What are you doing here?"

"I- I thought I hear you cry out, so I was wondering if something was wrong, but when I came in he was just fixing you, and _ogods why are you so red I'll just be in the living room ok?_"

She blinked. By the time she was done, he was already out of the bedroom and by the crashing sound she heard, he'd probably gone all the way to the stairs.

"I think he had the wrong idea."

She wanted to slap him for his conceited tone. But most of all she was wondering if Sagi didn't have exactly the right idea.

"How are your fingers moving?"

"Perfectly," she spat. She forced herself to keep absolutely still as he removed everything from her back and slid her skin into place.

Next time, it would be _payback._


End file.
